THE SMX Convention Center is targeting to at least have one convention held at the center every month.
SMX Convention Center Davao branch manager Daphne Jezelle Alojado said Monday during Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao that this can be achieved through reaching out to other key cities to conduct sales blitz and promoting the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) Program Incentives.
She said they are eyeing to visit Metro Manila and Metro Cebu to promote SMX Convention Center Davao and invite various potential clients to have their events here.
“Our target is hopefully to increase it more at least once a month for SMX. We have at least one convention and I’m sure that we can go beyond that,” Alojado said.
“That’s our target together with the Department of Tourism (DOT) because we already have this Mice program. We’ve started this last 2013 but formally it was launch 2014 onwards,” she added.
She said last year, they have been actively conducting roadshows to further attract more clients, especially to those who have not yet visited Davao City.
Alojado said when President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his office in June 2016, more and more people are gaining interest to the city as they have recorded 10 conventions being held here from only four conventions in 2015. They noted that almost every month, there have been different government meetings held at the SMX Convention Center.
As more conventions are being held in the city, Alojado said it will result to positive benefits to different industry stakeholders such as hotels and restaurants. Aside from that, the tenants of the SM Lanang Premier, where the SMX Convention Center is located, also benefited from the increasing number of functions.
“With the number of conventions that we had, it is not only hotels but even for the malls since we are inside SM Lanang Premier. Whenever we had affiliates meeting, other tenants would really inform us that they have good sales because of the conventions we had,” she said.
SMX Convention Center Davao can cater up to 5,200 people in a theater set up.
This coming April, they have several conventions of various associations or organizations including the Budget Officers Convention and Social Welfare Development Convention. Then for July, an Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) meeting will be held here.